Review Summary: Intense, yet polished album from the artist currently known as Rollins :)
Henry Rollins is a diverse man. To be perfectly honest, the spoken word material he has released' for which he is very famous and acclaimed for, is not really my bag and doesn't interest me to much. It doesn't stop me appreciating he as a great narrator, and even though he has been part of various bands, I feel Rollins band were arguably his most focused and intense work, with the album Weight being a commercial and artistic high point.
Henry Rollins seems to be obsessed with self analysis, and self loathing, and he portrays this incredibly well through his visceral and intense narratives over power of Rollins Band. There aren't any obvious singles on this album, but Liar managed to become a relatively big hit on MTV, (accompanied by a video where Henry was kitted out in red paint from head to toe!) and through the notoriety of their live shows, where they had previously impressed at the Lollapalooza festival, the album managed to gain reasonable success and were an extremely hot live ticket.
Musically, the band certainly pushed the boat out, and became more experimental from their previous album, but also had a much sharper and polished sound. This doesn't, however, take away from the intensity of the music or vocal delivery, which again has increased ten fold from the last album, Rollins screaming the chorus for Liar, being a prime example of this. The tight ensemble playing really doesn't get the attention it deserves because of Rollins charisma, but the guitarist, drummer and bassist all shine on this album, fusing together elements of hard rock, prog, funk, and sometimes even toying with the idea of jazz (!), all the time staying true to Rollins vision of what the band should be. The hard sabbath like riffs are a plenty on here, yet still managing to sound fresh.
End Of Silence was a good album, but Weight has certainly aged much better, and will surely stand the test of time for years to come, Henry Rollins makes sure of that on this record.
